Disconnected land line

[kt_john]

I noticed when reading through some of the posts on here that you were able to solve a similar problem that I am having, so fingers crossed someone can help!

My elderly parents were Virgin media customers for 10 years  but changed their package to vodafone in December after getting offered a great deal, and were they were able to keep their landline number. There were many issues with the installation as the house was connected to fibre for the first time during the change to Vodafone. My parents were concerned by teething issues and a lack of help from Vodafone so decided to cancel the contract with Vodafone within a 14 day period. During the change, they still had their Virgin Media package.  Unfortunately the land line had gone over to Vodafone, so since, Virgin have attempted to re-port number back. My parents stressed the importance of keeping the original landline number and the Virgin  customer services assured them on several occasions that this would be done. In the meantime, Virgin issued my parents with a temporary land line number.

It has now been well over 6 weeks and they still do not have their original land line number. Virgin have saiid that the line is not active and are unable to port until it is activated by Vodafone. BUT Vodafone has recently confirmed it has been disconnected and there is no way of retrieving it. This has caused a lot of distress for my elderly parents who rely on the landline to make contact with relatives and friends as well as medical professionals. They have had the same phone number for 50 years and still live at the same address. 

It has been very difficult to fully understand why this has happened and my parents did not give permission for their old land line to be disconnected permanently. 

Having read some similar forum advice, can someone please advise whether setting up a new line rental with BT would be the best option of retrieving their old phone number? My parents would be prepared to do that but my concern is that they still might not get their old number back.

I would be extremely grateful for any advice on this and I look forward to hearing from you

[Keith_Beddoe]

@kt_john 

Welcome to this user forum for BT Retail phone and broadband customers.

Unless their phone number was originally issued to them by BT Retail, then there is no chance of them getting it back, even if they moved to BT Retail.

BT Retail does not allocate numbers.

Each provider has their own number ranges.

They need to take up the issue with Virgin Media.

[kt_john]

Thanks  for your reply. 

The landline number was originally a BT number as they were BT customers for decades before moving to Telewest and then to Virgin. I believe BT retail would have owned the original exchange and the number for my parents address..? Or would  Virgin own it when they first moved the number to cable?

Virgin claim they couldn’t do anything without the number being ‘active’ and claim the fault was with Vodafone as they have disconnected the number.

Please can you confirm exactly what you mean so I can bring this up when I phone?…

 Many thanks for your help.

[Keith_Beddoe · Accepted solution]

@kt_john 

As the analogue phone network is closing down, any new BT service would be provided using BT Digital Voice. This is not provided from the physical BT exchange any more.

There is a 30-day window from when a PSTN number has been stopped in which BT can request a renumber onto a digital voice line.

As their number has now been ceased, its not going to going to be possible to get it back.

This is just a customer to customer help forum, everyone here, including myself, are just customers.

The only BT Employees are the forum moderators.